Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie has called for federation reform, including the possible abolition of the states, in a new book that urges Australia to embrace innovation and research as its future economic engine.

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But while the former Queensland premier was full of ideas, Mr Beattie insisted his political career was over.

"It is, in an elected sense," he told Fairfax Media.

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"But I'm fortunate. I still have a lot of energy and I'm young enough and I think people who have been in government – and Heather and I have been fortunate enough to spend some time overseas to see what works – I think we have a public obligation and duty to try to share those ideas.

"I believe in the power of ideas and the reason I wrote the book was actually to send a message about what we can do better."

Then-prime minister Kevin Rudd lured former premier Peter Beattie out of political retirement to run in Forde in 2013. He was unsuccessful. Photo: Andrew Meares

"If you can't delineate and you can't fund the states properly … then you've only got one other option – get rid of the states and let the commonwealth do it."

The approvals process for major projects was one area in need of reform, Mr Beattie said, as he cited one of his government's more controversial decisions.

"We were trying to build a water grid in the middle of the worst drought in Queensland's history," he said.

"I get the best advice that a dam should be built at Traveston.

"It was controversial and I understand that – nobody wants a dam built in their backyard, I understand that – but what we were trying to do was plan long-term for the state.

"We went through a process of state approvals, we started buying land and what happened? After I retired, the Rudd government scrapped the dam.

"What about those poor people who went through all that trauma for nothing? My view is either the state has the power to do that, or the commonwealth has the power to do that.

"All the waste and the time and the anxiety for all those people and in the end the dam was cancelled. Now how stupid is that?"

Despite how Traveston played out, Mr Beattie said he still believed it was the right place to build a dam.

"Why not have one streamlined approval process? Why have one where you need the approval of both the state and the commonwealth?" he said.

The knowledge economy

Mr Beattie, who now serves as a director of the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund, said the lack of commercialisation in Australian research had been the great missed opportunity for nation building over the past 20 years.

He said about $10 billion was spent on research in Australia, but only 1.5 per cent of that went into its commercialisation.

"When you look at the statistics, we're brilliant at research, we're a really smart nation, but when it comes to commercialising it and turning it into jobs and business and companies here, we're bloody terrible," Mr Beattie said.

"So the real lynchpin for us is the commercialisation of our research and what's missing is venture capital. That's been the heart of it and that's why so much of our early research goes to the United States to be commercialised."

Mr Beattie said the Turnbull government needed to take advantage of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement to set up venture capital funds.

He said Australia had a "five-to-10 year window", in which Australian research remained superior but emerging economies had the funds, to tap into the Asian riches.

"It's a marriage made in heaven," he said.

"If we can set up a joint venture fund, or a couple of them, where they invest in Australian research and the quality of our science, we commercialise it, we obviously share the benefits of the intellectual property – the IP – the funds should be based in Australia, but it has to be shared.

"In other words, we would end up with more money than ever before invested in commercialising our research."

Mr Beattie said two funds should be set up using Chinese venture capital. The first, he said, should be devoted to medical research and the other to general innovation.

"The federal government should use the free trade agreement to bring together the various research institutes and universities in Australia, come up with a board that is part-Chinese and part-Australian and use AusTrade to help facilitate investment funds and encourage them to come here," he said.

"To do that, we have to overcome our Chinese phobia. Too often, we are paranoid about Chinese investment – look, we've had American investment, English investment.

"We are a country of 24 million people and we do not have enough money. If we are serious about commercialising our brain power, we have to get venture capital from somewhere."

No political comeback

In his book, Mr Beattie says he always knew his chances of defeating the Liberal National Party's Bert van Manen were "slim" and he was "not unhappy" to lose.

"Politics has just become so puerile," he told Fairfax Media.

"People argue all the bloody time. Sometimes we have to remember that not all the good players are on the one side.

"We do have to work together and if there can be some bipartisanship about innovation, then we can actually build a smart country and deliver the jobs of tomorrow."

While Mr Beattie said he was happy to be out of the game, it did not mean an end to his public life.

"I am going to play a role, which hopefully I'm starting with this book, arguing about ideas in the public space because I think, like most Australians, we're just sick to death of all the political nonsense," he said.

Where it all went wrong for Campbell Newman

During their overlapping stints as premier and Brisbane lord mayor respectively, Mr Beattie and Campbell Newman had a famously close working relationship.

"The state government did the Airport Link and gave approval to do the other tunnels and I did get on with him very well," Mr Beattie said.

"They should have said 'look, this is the revenue we used to get, this is the revenue we've got now' and their focus on cut, cut, cut and even their privatisation strategies were only short term," he said.

"They were not going to solve the state's economic problems.

"…(Mr Newman) didn't communicate the problems and had he been a lot more honest about the financial changes instead of the blame game, I think people would have understood it and been a lot more sympathetic.

"I think he took a sledgehammer to the problem, I think the sackings weren't constructive and the privatisation agenda wasn't going to produce the economic results they wanted, because once it's gone, it's gone.

"He missed the whole point about growing the economy – he had a four-plank strategy and innovation wasn't one of them. I don't understand that."

Mr Beattie said there was also a marked change in Mr Newman's personality following Labor's 2012 election campaign, which he said made Mr Newman "very adversarial".

"The Labor Party made a very bad mistake in the 2012 election when they ran a negative campaign against him and I think he took it personally – really took it personally," Mr Beattie said.

"He saw it as vindictive and, frankly, I thought it was right over the top and I said so at the time, but he never forgave the Labor Party for it and I think it consumed him.

"So what he did then, he wanted to get even and I think that overplayed his hand in every way – politics became very nasty, they became excessive.

"…When you get to the stage of being hardline in politics, without listening to people and getting the cooperative best out of people, then you pay a political price and he did."

The 'inevitable' Australian republic

Mr Beattie said he was buoyed by a recent resurgence in the Australian republican debate, which he saw as vital for Australia's standing in the region.

"The reality is, if we want to pass this referendum, I strongly believe we have to elect our own president like the Irish do," he said.

"If the Irish can do it, why the hell can't we do it?

Mr Beattie said he had exchanged letters with former prime minister Gough Whitlam, a republican who had been "quite cranky" with direct electionists during the 1999 referendum campaign.

The model eventually put to the Australian people was one in which the president would have been appointed by a two-thirds majority of a joint sitting of the Federal Parliament.

"Gough subsequently wrote to me and said he now agreed that I was right, that he believed there has to be a direct election with the same codified powers of the president," Mr Beattie said.

"I know there are people who don't agree with that, but if you take away the power of the people, they're not going to give you the power to appoint their president."

A change in the flag was also a must, Mr Beattie said, as it sent the wrong signal to have the Union Jack in the corner of the Australian flag.

"I know a lot of people hang on to the flag, but we are an independent nation and we have to forge our place in the world.

"People respect us for our intellect and who we are as people – we have to show it."

Peter Beattie's new book, Where To From Here, Australia? will be available for instant purchase in paperback, or for Kindle or Android, on the Strictly Literary website from Saturday.